


Happily Ever After

by ishafel



Category: The Administration - Manna Francis
Genre: M/M, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-08
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-11 16:00:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1174995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishafel/pseuds/ishafel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Warrick and Toreth have the Talk.  Yuletide 2008</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happily Ever After

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The Blue Escapist (theblueescapist)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theblueescapist/gifts).



Children weren't something Toreth thought about, properly, except to think how much he disliked them. Children were something other people had, because apparently they didn't know better. From what Toreth had seen, most of them lived to regret it.

So it took him a minute to realize that Cele's idiot tosser boyfriend was actually talking to him. “So, will you and Warrick be applying for a license some time soon?”

Talking to him about kids. “A license for what?” That was what he got, for watching Dillian and Cele talking, heads together. He was never sure whether there was something going on between them-- or whether he just wanted there to be. Cele had turned up with the idiot in tow, which probably meant that there wasn't, but she was standing awfully close to Dillian for friendly conversation. Thinking about the two of them together kept Toreth going through any number of dull family lunches.

The idiot was still talking, but Toreth was stuck on children. It wasn't something anyone who knew him at all would have asked, his friends because they knew how he felt, Warrick's family because they presumably thought that no one with Toreth's psych profile or career choice should be allowed anywhere near a kid-- and Warrick-- Warrick was probably just clever enough not to bring it up, regardless of how he felt about it.

“Right,” he said, “I have to go,” and walked away from the tosser and the conversation both. Warrick was in the kitchen, adding something to the soup with the same careful deliberation he applied to the sim and to sex. Toreth leaned against the door frame and watched, wishing he could clear everyone out of the flat and fuck Warrick until his brain stopped working. Well, maybe he would let Dillian and Cele stay.

He must have sighed, or moaned, or something, because Warrick looked up. “Toreth. Hand me that plate, will you?”

Toreth brought it over, more or less obediently, and the novelty must have been enough to clue Warrick in that something was wrong. “They'll be gone soon,” he said encouragingly. “Surely you can manage to be polite to Michael for two hours? I thought you said he was fuckable.”

“Yeah, til he opened his mouth. The only way I could bring myself to fuck him would be if I got my cock down his throat before he started talking, and even then--.”

“Good to know,” Warrick said briskly, but Toreth could hear him smiling. Michael was half long dark eyelashes and half muscles, and not at all conflicted about what he wanted, which made him not at all Toreth's type-- but he liked, still, that there was an edge of jealousy to Warrick's voice.

“He wanted to know if we were talking about applying for a conception license.” Toreth said it as casually as he could, but he knew he wasn't fooling either of them.

Warrick laughed. “Which of us was he expecting to do the conceiving?”

Toreth wasn't laughing. “There are ways around that. You know that as well as I do. For the right price--.”

“You can have anything you like, I know,” Warrick said dryly. “I didn't think you wanted children.”

“I fucking well don't,” Toreth said bleakly, wondering if this was a kind of ultimatum. He'd spent a long time meaning to break it off with Warrick, and a long time waiting for Warrick to break it off with him, and then without realizing he'd slid into an easy sense of permanence, counting on Warrick always being there.

Losing that-- losing that would be like drowning all over again.

“If I don't get this on the table in the next ten minutes, they'll all be in here looking for us,” Warrick said, finally. “Toreth--.”

“It's all right. I get it.”

“No. I don't think you do.” And now, finally, all of Warrick's focus was on Toreth, and not on lunch or their guests. “I have to say this fast, is what I mean, and you have to listen to me and believe me, or at least not go off and sulk until I have time to explain.”

Toreth sighed with exaggerated patience. “Fine.”

“I always thought I'd have children some day, but it went along having a wife, and a regular job, and--.”

“Regular sex,” Toreth filled in obediently. “Well, you have that.”

“I'm not sure I ever wanted it for its own sake.” Warrick flung something green into the soup, haphazardly, and took the bread out of the oven. “I think it was more that I wanted to be someone I'm not, and that was part of the package. I love Valeria-- you know I do-- but she's exhausting. And honestly, I think you're better with her than I am.”

He started slicing the bread. Toreth watched, caught up in the novelty of the compliment. He was good at pretending when he had to-- but Warrick knew who he was, and what he did, and how much of the two were the same.

“You'd be okay,” he said eventually, grudgingly, because a part of him was afraid that if Warrick knew that, if he understood it, he'd change his mind. If he had to choose between a child of his own, and Toreth--. But he knew Warrick was expecting it, and not saying it wouldn't change anything. “If it was yours.”

“Thanks.” Warrick flashed him a look that said he knew, and didn't mind. “But, Toreth, that was something I wanted because Melissa wanted it. There are things I want that you can give me, that she never could.”

Toreth had met Melissa, and he knew that that, at least, was the truth. He couldn't have Warrick's baby, even if he'd wanted to, but she couldn't get Warrick hard just by reaching carefully across the steaming soup-- putting just enough into it that his shirt slid up to show his stomach, still as flat as it'd been when he was twenty-five-- and catching Warrick's wrist in one hand and grinding the bones together until Warrick gasped.

That was why he stayed, after all. That was why both of them stayed. “The soup's getting cold,” he said, even though it wasn't. Warrick sighed, visibly disappointed.

Toreth resolved himself to think of a way to make it up to him. There were things he couldn't do, even for Warrick-- but there were things he could.


End file.
